By Myself and Then Some (26 page)

It was happening – it was really happening. I couldn’t believe it, but I did. Even before it happened. Because it had to.

The picture was finally finished. Bogie gave me a present – my first gold bracelet – an i.d., with my name on one side, ‘the whistler’ on the other. Slim helped him choose it. Relations were somewhat strained between Howard and me. He sensed he had lost. The girl he had invented was no longer his. I can see now how he must have felt. Having invested his time, money, and talent in an unknown, on the point of realizing his lifelong dream of creation – and standing to make a good deal of money – he would not be thrilled at having it all blow up in his face. Why in hell should he have been patient and understanding? No reason – I wouldn’t have been, had positions been reversed, yet I expected
him
to be. Also I knew he had a sneaking feeling for me. I remember someone on the picture stopping me on the lot one day and saying, ‘You know, you ought to call Howard. You ought to ask him for a date.’ ‘Why?’ asked the foolish girl. ‘Because he’d like it. He likes that – and he really likes you a lot. You could go over to his private office. Nobody would know about it.’ Boy, I was slow. It took some time before I realized what he was talking about.

Nevertheless, Bogart snatched his discovery away from him – his plans blew up in his face. He had an incredible ego, but there was no good reason for him to like what happened, or to put up with it. He even suggested to Bogie once that he get a room in the Ambassador Hotel, downtown, away from the Beverly Hills scene. That was the way to have a little outside fun. But Bogie was the last man on earth to make that kind of suggestion to.

During
The Big Sleep
I met more of Bogie’s friends. One of them was Mark Hellinger. Hellinger had been a newspaperman in New York during the speakeasy days. He had fallen in love with a
Ziegfeld Follies
girl, the beautiful Gladys Glad. The story was that during their courting days Mark would write columns to her – when things were not going well, he’d write very sentimental stuff to woo her back. He was a movie producer now, he was known for his capacity for drink and for getting everyone else drunk – he could drink a bottle of brandy and a bottle of seventeen-year-old bourbon on the same day and it would never show. He drove a big black Cadillac with the license plate MH1. He wore gray suits, gray shirts, and white ties. Always a gray fedora. He knew many hoods, liked something about some of them – the glamour, mystery, power, who knows? Went to the racetrack. Was known for his extravagant tipping – ten bucks to a parking attendant, twenty to a waiter – always carried a lot of cash and started to shell it out on arrival anywhere. He never let anyone else pick up a check. That was his game. He’d go to any lengths – calling in advance, bribing captains, anything – so no one else could pay the check. A sweet, vulnerable man – a good friend, loved by all. He always invited strays to his house for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Mike Romanoff, Bugsy Siegel, Al Smiley, a Siegel friend, their wives or girls. Bogie and I had our first Christmas dinner together there. I remember thinking how charming Bugsy Siegel and Al Smiley were – soft-spoken, polite. When Bogie told me Bugsy was underground-connected, I couldn’t believe it.

Mark and Gladys lived in an enormous house up in the hills on LaBrea Avenue – an electric gate, swimming pool, tennis court, projection room, the works. But the house was always dark. You’d enter an enormous living room with almost no lights on, cloths covering the furniture – move to the den where the bar was –
that
was lit, but the place was not comfortable. Gladys would come into the bar late, after guests had arrived, in full make-up and tinted glasses. A tall, beautiful woman, very sweet, always a little under the influence of booze or tranquilizers I thought, and I think her two small children were always a little frightened of her. She spoke very softly – sitting around a dinner table, one would always see the man next to her leaning over very close. I thought it was that they thought she was devastating, but Bogie told me it was because they couldn’t hear her, and she was always talking
about the canned goods – how many cans of Campbell’s soup were in the basement.

Howard felt
The Big Sleep
needed another scene between Bogie and me – one of those titillating
double entendre
scenes – but he’d wait until he’d cut the film. Meanwhile, Warners wanted me to make my first trip to New York since
To Have and Have Not
. I was ecstatic at the idea, I hadn’t been back in a year and a half. They would arrange it all – with Charlie Einfeld planning it, there’d be lots of publicity. He wanted me to go to Chicago en route – to the National Press Club in Washington – revisit Julia Richman High School – give tons of interviews. That was okay with me, and I’d see my darling family again – I couldn’t wait for that. But there would be no Grandma – what would that be like? It was planned that I’d leave on February 2 on the
Super Chief
, with Mother and Droopy and Jack Diamond, our publicity man on
The Big Sleep
, who’d become a friend.

Jack was a great pal of Walter Winchell, who was then known all over the world – he was a unique newsman, gossip columnist, radio commentator with machine-gun delivery. He was out in California for a couple of weeks and told Jack he’d loved me in
To Have and Have Not
and wanted to meet me. So one Sunday night Jack took me to the radio studio to sit in on the broadcast and go to dinner afterward. This was the big time – meeting Walter Winchell! He was a friend of Mark Hellinger as well, and I took quite a ribbing from Mark about it. So did Bogie. Mark would say, ‘Look out – Winchell loves young girls, loves to go dancing – he might make you forget Bogie. He’s turned more than one girl’s head in his time!’ Bogie was not crazy about the notion, but it did come under the heading of publicity and he didn’t want to deprive me of anything that might give me a boost. As I was sitting in the glass booth listening, Winchell came to his ‘Orchids to You’ section – a couple of minutes devoted to praise of someone. I heard my name and blushed purple. He was complimenting me on my performance and saying, ‘Look out for Bacall – hold on to your hats – she is something!’ Winchell was a good newspaperman but a vain man, convinced he could change the course of world events – slightly deluded, but never mind. He also fancied himself a ladies’ man. He had a slight crush on me – and, sure enough, Mark was right, we went dancing at the Mocambo. He mentioned me again on his broadcast and broke precedent later by
devoting an entire column to me titled ‘Bacall of the Wild.’ I was flattered and it did me a lot of good – perfect fodder for Warner’s publicity department.

Bogie stayed away from home another ten days, then gave it one last try with Mayo over Christmas. He had given me my first gold watch, with a gold chain strap. He put it on my wrist himself. Then, after the holidays, he left Mayo for good. He said they had agreed on a settlement and had retained lawyers. It was walking a tightrope whether she would agree to go to Reno or not.

Bogie was back at the Beverly Hills Hotel. We hid at The Players for dinner – it was on Sunset Strip just opposite the Garden of Allah and was owned by Preston Sturges. We were there one night with Jack Diamond and Walter Winchell, I in gray trousers and a navy boat shirt of Bogie’s. Not a planned dinner. It made me very nervous to go out publicly, but Bogie felt it was okay if there were others present and we didn’t stay too long. I was slouched low in the booth, hoping not to be seen. Winchell said, ‘Wouldn’t you love to go to New York and be in a play?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, then realized what I’d said and followed it by a quick ‘No.’ Bogie pounded his fist on the table, furious that after all the trouble he was going through, I could even think of going away. ‘You goddamn actresses! If that’s your plan, go ahead and go – forget about me.’ I was filled with remorse – tried hard to put it right. Said I’d just been joking, which I had.

Bogie was hypersensitive during this period, the only time his sense of humor faltered. He was turning his life upside down, and I didn’t understand all the complications of that. To me it was very black-and-white simple. His anxieties about me were manifold – the age difference, which was never out of his thoughts – and the fact that I was just beginning my career. Would I want to give it up? Should I be asked to? But there was no way he was going to start a life with me if I had any doubt as to what came first with me – marriage or career. And the property settlement. He’d worked all his life for the little he had – he hadn’t accumulated much, but half would go automatically to Mayo. As I’d never had anything to divide up, how could that have meaning for me? I would pay lip-service to understanding – would think that I did – but I didn’t. Bogie knew damn well that if I stuck with my career, a marriage to him could not succeed. ‘If you want a career, don’t get married. You can’t have both.’ I was sure I wanted nothing
but to be Mrs Humphrey Bogart. I said I was prepared to give up work, and I believed what I said.

Bogie made his final move – into the Garden of Allah, a famous group of old Spanish bungalows that housed Robert Benchley, Charlie Butterworth, Nunnally Johnson, Dorothy Parker, John O’Hara when in town, Arthur Sheekman, Thornton Delehanty, John McClain. Alla Nazimova, the mysterious Russian actress, lived there and I think owned it. It boasted a great bellman who delivered mail, provided booze when needed, and knew something of the life of everyone who resided there. He was slightly under the influence himself a good deal of the time, but no one seemed to care. Bogie took a bungalow facing the swimming pool – large living room, bedroom, small kitchen and dining area. Very comfortable.

At this time Mary Chase’s play
Harvey
, about an invisible rabbit, was a great success in New York. As I was supposed to be what is laughingly called invisible, I was tagged ‘Harvey’ by Bogie. A girl of many names in that year.

Life was more and more falling into place. Louis Bromfield, one of Bogie’s oldest and best friends, and Louis’ secretary, George Hawkins, a round, mustached, outrageously funny man, were to be in Los Angeles very briefly. Bogie had told me all about Louis’ Malabar Farm, with its thousand or more beautiful acres of Ohio farmland. Louis had started his literary career brilliantly with his tetralogy titled
The Green Bay Tree, Possession, Early Autumn
, and
A Good Woman
. Later he had written
The Rains Came
, which was a big hit and sold to films, had become a farmer, a working farmer, and fallen so in love with the soil that his writing thereafter took second place and suffered accordingly.

Bogie’s and Louis’ political philosophies were diametrically opposed, but that did not interfere with their friendship. Bogie felt that Louis worked his farm, cared about farmers, understood about them – and that his politics were the result of intelligent thought. Based on that, they must be respected. Louis was a very tall man of enormous charm and good humor. We got on well immediately. It was odd to see Bogie in the company of such a man – it made his past life much clearer to me. I could comprehend, in part at least, why Bogie always said the Twenties were the ‘good old days’ – much more fun than the Forties.

By this time many arrangements had been solidified. Bogie was going to Malabar with Louis and George for a couple of weeks, then
to New York, where he would wait for me and where I would meet his New York newspaper friends and ‘21’ friends. I was going to the Racquet Club in Palm Springs with Mother for a rest before taking off on my personal-appearance tour. Bogie had ordered a ring for me from his friend John Gershgorn, the Beverly Hills jeweler. It would be ready before I left.

We could be together all the time now – or almost – but still had to be careful not to flaunt our relationship in Mayo’s face. Bogie had to make sure that she would agree to stay in Reno for six weeks without once coming to L.A. One twenty-four-hour period away would negate even five weeks in Reno and she’d have to start all over again. But the wheels had begun to turn – it was only a question of time now. So the cynics were wrong. My mother made her truce with Bogie – an armed truce, but she accepted it. How could she not? She saw how happy and how much in love I was. Bogie, Louis, and George left on the
Super Chief
in mid-January 1945. I had bought Bogie a small bronze rabbit to signify Harvey’s presence at all times. We signed and exchanged several photographs – he took his to Ohio, mine rested on display in Reeves Drive.

The separation was bittersweet – to be apart for a minute was painful, but the knowledge that we’d be united in two weeks made it bearable. As I read Bogie’s letters, which were frequent and long, I realized how much he had shaken up his life. Now that he had left wife number three, he was free at last to look forward to something again. He hadn’t believed anything good would ever happen in his life again – that he would have children – or love – or want anything as much as he wanted us to have a life together. He wrote to his business manager, Morgan Maree, about his settlement with Mayo, and he sent me a copy of the letter. He was careful that I should know every step, understand that I could go to Morgan for help at any time. I saw that he had completely exposed himself emotionally, that he was as vulnerable as a child – as prone to jealousy and anxiety as any kid in love for the first time would be.

I
was
a kid in love for the first time. It was easy for me – I knew nothing about pitfalls. I was giving nothing but myself and I could do that without a qualm. Never in my life had or has a man cared so much for me, wanted so much to protect me, surround me with life’s joys, share everything. It made me want to return the care – to show him it
was possible to be really happy with a woman, to give him children. I was determined to do that.

There were things in the press during those two weeks – that Mayo wanted him back, that she had no intention of divorcing him. I was upset by all of them. I’d cut out the clippings and send them to him. He’d reassure me – more of the Hollywood crap from the gossip leeches whom he despised, who couldn’t exist except for us and didn’t give a damn what they wrote or whom they hurt as long as it was a story.